Fourth Generation Warfare: Is it coming live to a theatre near
you?
By Paul M. Weyrich
web posted December 13, 2002
No one likes to be the grinch, but even as the Christmas season
approaches we cannot forget that we are fighting the War on
Terrorism. The threat is still very much present no matter our
success (or failure) in Afghanistan in taking on the Taliban and al-
Qaida.
Al-Qaida is said to be experiencing success in recruiting young
Islamics in Europe. The Dutch secret service, for instance, in a
recent report to their parliament said the terrorist organization is
signing up legal and illegal immigrants in the mosques and cafes
of their country to wage a jihad against the West. "The
recruitment of these youths shows a violent radical Islamic
current is stealthily taking root in Dutch society," the report
stated.
European police have been rounding up terrorists, expressing
surprise at the breadth of the Islamic terrorist network, which
includes, but is not limited to al-Qaida, and has links not just in
Europe but also North America, North Africa, the Middle East
and Central Asia.
One al-Qaida-linked website http://www.jehad.net released an
audio statement in which al-Qaida's Sulaiman Abu Ghaith
promised "The Christian-Jewish alliance will not, God willing, be
safe from attacks by the mujahadeen [Muslim warriors]...The
alliance's installations and facilities everywhere will be subject to
attacks...The next phase will witness bigger and more lethal
operations."
Abu Gaith makes it clear that the United States is very much a
target to be victimized by "focused and lightning operations" and
that we "should not feel safe, whether on land, sea or air."
At a time when there is cause to believe that the threat from al-
Qaida is increasing, it is good to see that more attention is being
focused on the work of my colleague at the Free Congress
Foundation, William S. Lind, who served two U.S. Senators, the
late Robert Taft, Jr. (R-OH) and Gary Hart (D-CO), as a
defense advisor. Insight on the News recently published an
article by reporter Scott Wheeler examining "Fourth Generation
Warfare."
It was Bill Lind who with several military officers, ventured in
1989 to predict how the nature of warfare would change with
the end of the Cold War in a Marine Corps Gazette article that
has received recognition for its prescience from The Atlantic
Monthly and The New York Times Magazine.
Lind and his co-authors advanced the thesis that there would be
a shift from warfare being fought by nation-states to ones in
which our primary antagonists were likely to be religions, interest
groups, or tribes fighting cause-oriented warfare. They wrote in
the article that the threat to our country was likely to come from
"non-Western cultural traditions, such as Islamic or Asiatic
traditions...The fact that some non-Western areas, such as the
Islamic world, are not strong in technology may lead them to
develop a fourth generation [of modern war] through ideas rather
than technology."
The idea that has emerged appears to be using our own
technological achievements against us, witness the attacks on
September 11th. Now, there is speculation that al-Qaida may be
targeting oil tankers.
The idea behind Fourth Generation warfare is to promote the
collapse of the targeted society from within, and we have every
reason to worry that our own nation's multiculturalism will blind
us to the real challenge that confronts us. That is, we, and by that
I mean not just America but Western Civilization, are not just
facing a gang of terrorists, but a more substantial force in Islam,
whose radical adherents have been able to extend their reach
thanks to globalization and immigration.
Al-Qaida came to a similar realization because al-Qaida read
Lind's article while it sat gathering dust in the Pentagon's libraries.
The Insight on the News article recalls that back in February, the
Middle East Media Research Institute had published writings
discovered on a website that had been used by al-Qaida. One of
the terrorist organization's chief strategists discussed the 1989
article in detail, asserting that the "new type of war presents
significant difficulties for the Western war machine."
Lind's writings are compelling, particularly in light of the attacks
that occurred on September 11, 2001. It is unfortunate that too
many in our defense establishment are still locked into the
traditional modes of thinking about warfare. We are not yet out
of danger as many Americans would like to think. They prefer to
see September 11th as a bad day whose memory will fade as
time goes by. Lind says the September 11th attacks "were just
the appetizer in what will be a twelve-course meal."
The Pentagon and our defense establishment have a second
chance to discover the wisdom and prescience of Lind's writings.
Let's hope they seize the opportunity.
Paul M. Weyrich is Chairman and CEO of the Free Congress
Foundation (http://www.freecongress.org).
Enter Stage Right -- http://www.enterstageright.com